The worst season of the Deconreconstruction year is well and truly upon us. With its scorching heat comes a drought of updates, leaving the inhabitants of our fair website like thirsty little flowers left to wilt in a climate they weren't made for. Unlike the noble cactus, who take the lack of status pretty well on account of the fact that it does not have to be shoved into a lousy metaphor.
Sorry for the impromptu break! No real reason for it. We just get extremely busy and a little miserable with the constant intake of natural Vitamin D in our systems. We weren't slacking off! We were just not allowing ourselves to rot in front of our screens and tablets all day every day. I know, I know. "Too many excuses! Back to toiling in the mines!" We feel the same way as you do when we're alone, covering our faces with blistered hands, trying to hide our tears.
So what's been going on with us since March? WELL...
3/22/24 CHARITY LIVESTREAM- As per the last newspost, for our thirteenth anniversary Heather and I both committed to doing a twenty-four hour charity livestream with a lofty goal of $6,000 USD. All proceeds going to Palestine relief.
We thought this might have been a little excessive, but it turns out our fans are even more insane than we thought. Because we raised over $8,550 USD instead.
There's genuinely too much that happened for me to give you guys a full recap of the event. But luckily, the stream in its entirety has been archived on the Deconreconstruction Youtube channel. We had amazing guests from all walks of Vast Error and Vast Error adjacent life, released tons of official panel redraws from prolific artists and friends we have in the community, shared several previews of new music coming in the near future, and even had some mysterious interlopers from beyond pop in. Our friends at SiIvaGunner might just be planning something big too...
We had a few hiccups in trying to process the donations during and after the event, but we were able to mostly get it to work out in the end thankfully. Here's our receiptsfor posterity!
Beyond that, there are still several goal incentives we have yet to do. I promised chat that I would buy this ultra rare Kid Cuisine Furby, and I intend to deliver as soon as I have plentiful dosh. My son WILL come home. I'm going to name him Crump.
Anyway! Look forward to a CHARM GEOCACHE, CANON FANTROLLS, A QNA WITH ANDREW HUSSIE, A MURRIT DATING SIM and a RERUNS/WARTORN TRAILS ARCHIVE in your probable future. I can't promise how long it will take to complete these, but I can promise they will happen.
Thanks for making me a halfway decent pizza and watching me play Bart's Nightmare! Let's do it again sometime!
SNOWBOUND BLOOD- The long-awaited, palpably-anticipated, multiple-novel-length, multimedia-narrative-nightmare that has been Snowbound Blood: A Vast Error Story has finally come to its conclusion. It's not getting up again anytime soon, so I feel like I'm well within my rights to utilize past participles.
The epilogue is something I feel you truly have to experience to believe. I had my hands all over these final scenes, and it gives you something you won't find anywhere else in the Vast Error mythos you won't have again for a long while. But play the rest of the game first! Don't just skip to the end! You'll find nothing but judgement there, or even a distinct lack of it. Whichever sounds scarier to you.
We intend to release the game's original soundtrack in the very near future! It just needed a lot of track art. There's also plans to give the current release one last big update to punch up some dialogue, clean up some extra code and make the product the best it can possibly be. Other than that aforementioned Dating Sim though, we'll probably be leaving our visual novel run here for now.
So long, Regulator. It's a beautiful morning.
WALKAROUND- One of the most substantial previews we showed off during the 3/22 stream was an alpha build of the upcoming Arcjec and Taz walkaround.
Talksprites have all been assigned and given concept art, more work on the overworld has been completed, menus have been designed and that huge honkin' document that outlines the entirety of the game has been finished!
There have got to be people clawing at their enclosures, frothing at the mouth to get their hands on this. I can't blame you! There's so much OOMPH even in these little snippets! Surely the Tazjec Scene Selection Section (SSS) is the game, right?!?!?!
Unfortunately, creating a mini-RPG up from nothing is an arduous task that requires all hands on deck to complete. And a lot of our hands are too sore from the regular mining duties to commit fully to consistently grinding on another project of this scale. We learned that the hard way! Neither of us are gonna be ready to handle this thing until we take a long period to lock in and toil away at whittling down this one giant developmental roadblock.
You'll know when that happens. For now? Trust the process.
DUODENARY- A new side album by our favorite EDM and Jungle beat god Goomy premiered a couple months back! It's a concept album about the twelve aspects of existence and those that define them.
As always, you can find it up on our Bandcamp and can download it for free along with all the other Vast Error Music Team projects!
NEW MERCH- Not much to say here, but we've had some new (and reworked) merch put out on SHOP@DCRC!
You guys know what's up. Give it a gander and see if anything suits your fancy. I'm a big fan of the Act 3 Act 1 Cast Buttons done by Neptune, myself! But everything is expectedly spectacular.
DCRC 2.0- The website will be going through some changes over the course of the next year or two. We're slowly but surely becoming less of the hosts of Vast Error and more of an independent multimedia hub for all kinds of creators, at the very least internally. This will also come with changes for Vast Error's reader experience as well, some of which we've been promising for years, but it's mostly the other stuff. This is the fabled release of DECONRECONSTRUCTION 2.0.
What are we scheming? New and exciting comic projects, son!
It's been talked about before, but we already have plans to adopt Run With Scissors to the site. Since then, we've also decided to take on ANOTHER COMIC that will be added to the site once DCRC 2.0 is fully engaged.
We'll be keeping the list of new material tight-knit as to not broaden our horizons too far, but needless to say, it's been an exciting change of pace. I even designed us a little mascot on a piece of scratch paper!
Why is this relevant again, though? Why are you putting all this extra slop in my Vast Error news soup?
THE NEW DCRC IP- This is why.
I haven't talked much about this! It didn't even get brought up during the charity stream section where it was initially revealed! That's because I wanted to give it a quick spotlight here. This is DCRC's first TRULY ORIGINAL IP.
I've been slow-cooking it with a bunch of our most talented comrade chefs along with these constantly outgoing Vast Error soups. Ciro and Hallie, two artists that we've worked with for years, will be leading the charge in the art and design department, and I've brought some of the strongest soldiers I've worked with to help flesh it out into something truly awesome.
Internally, we refer to it under the codename PROJECT JUMP.
I'm not at liberty to speak much about it this early on, and truthfully, you may not see much of it again for a long while. But what I will tell you is that we're intending on making this new webcomic project something truly special that hasn't been tried before to my knowledge. I want to approach it as though it's a new evolution of webcomic formulas, or perhaps a better term would be a SYNTHESIS of them.
What's it about? Can't talk much about that either! But if I were to give you an elevator pitch...
Put NO MORE HEROES, VENOM, JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE and CHAINSAW MAN in a blender, puree that shit for about five minutes, and slug it down like you're a bodybuilder on a narrative protein diet. You might just get a taste of what I'm talking about.
That about wraps up this catch-up! To summer-ize what you can expect for the rest of the year:
- UPDATES OF MANY VARIETIES - MUSIC - CHARITY STREAM GOAL RELEASES - JOY AND WHIMSY
"Catch you on the flipside, dudemeisters!" I say behind tears, before tripping over a stray rock with a face on it and dying instantly. It was a mercy killing.
Posted by Austinado on 3/18/2024.
On this fine Monday, I'd like to proudly announce the plans for Vast Error's 13th anniversary! God, this project is as old as me and Heather were when we started making it. Isn't that terrifying?
This year we'll be hosting a 24 HOUR LIVESTREAM on the DCRC Twitch channel, not only to celebrate the occasion, but also to receive active donations in support of two Palestinian relief efforts: E-SIMS FOR GAZA and CARE FOR GAZA.
All proceeds earned during the event will go to the charities mentioned above. Our base goal is to fundraise at least $6,000 USD in aid, which sounds like a lot for a webcomic hosting site whose main export is, for all intents and purposes, a fan project. But there's one thing we've learned after doing this gig for so long: ambition and effort can go a long way if you know where to direct them.
And we don't intend to just stream. No, that's too easy. We also have several guests who will be joining us throughout the day, along with special events and incentives that will either happen on stream or coordinated afterwards as a direct result of your donations, with stretch goals that go up to $10,000 USD. This includes PREVIEWS, RAFFLES, MERCH REVEALS, PANEL REDRAWS, MUSIC PREVIEWS, MESSAGES FROM BEYOND, and MORE!
We'll be posting more about the event in the coming days leading up to its start. It would be great if you all did the same!
Let's make this the best birthday we've had yet by shattering those numbers and fighting for a better world.
Posted by Austinado on 2/20/2024.
Quickly announcing that if you haven't had the chance, today is your last day to pick up the pinnacle of licensed crossover products at the end of your Corporate Mandated Soulmate Appreciation Wice. After this? Who knows if it will ever be able to see another release? These probabilities never last long.
Also I'd like to welcome some new artists to our ranks! Divo, Karma, and a secret, insidious third person who haunts the shadows. These people know their way around a troll or two, mostly because they've all been drawing ours for a while. Two of them have actually done track art before on Volume 5! Wow!
Anyway, next time you hear from me in your favorite news box will be right before 3/22. This year we're doing something radically different than our usual batch of drops and sneak previews. It's something I'm extremely accustomed to doing on a regular basis, but not in this particular context. Let's just say it'll be a day worth celebrating. Am I winking at you knowingly or is my eye twitching like a freak? Whatever makes you happiest is the right answer. ;)
I want to also finally get my shout outs from a couple posts ago out of the way. I've got ominous phones to answer, so I'll make this quick:
Since the dawn of man, humans have consistently gotten results by smashing two things together: sticks and stones, peanut butter and jelly, cars and rising death rates. Today, we'd like to announce the new ingenious merger of ideas that nobody could have ever guessed would actually happen... HOMESTUCK AND DECONRECONSTRUCTION.
That's right! Deconreconstruction is now partnered with the Homestuck Independent Creative Union and Homestuck Inc. as an officially licensed fan comic! I'm sure there are a lot of questions about the logistics, so allow me to give you the scoop.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Andrew Hussie approached us and offered a free license to work with the IP. No royalties owed, no ties to What Pumpkin, VIZ Media, or any other corporate interest, and no outside influence from higher ups at the Homestuck Factory. (NOTE: The Homestuck Factory doesn't exist. That was a joke.)
Basically, he said: "You guys do good work, keep doing that." And then handed us the keys to our own little pocket of house-bound freedom.
WHAT IS THE HOMESTUCK INDEPENDENT CREATIVE UNION?
The HICU is an union of creative contributors which was established to consolidate members of future Homestuck projects, they make Homestuck: Beyond Canon and have been given a license just like ours. Stuck At Home Con has also been recently licensed in the same manner, and now, Vast Error is a part of this ever expanding network.
Having this license effectively gives us free reign to work within the full Homestuck universe and monetize ourselves in full to compensate for our efforts, as well as collaborate on new ideas with the other members involved.
WILL VAST ERROR OR ANY OF ITS RELATED PROJECTS BE CHANGED BY THIS?
Nope! As far as creative direction and narrative plans go, the comic and its spin-offs will be unaffected. Vast Error will remain completely segregated within its own mythos. Homestuck's influence on it is purely inspirational, after all. Except for the times where it isn't. Maybe Intermission 2 Side 1 can be slightly more quasi-canon now, if you believe hard enough.
More than anything else, this opens up the floodgates for the viable creation of a ton of merchandising and other creative opportunities, without threat of a cease and desist!
Where that takes us is anyone's guess. But isn't the endless uncertainty a little exciting?
We're all looking forward to making the best out of this incredible situation! Vast Error is going to be thirteen years old from concept to current update in the next couple months, and I don't think anyone on the team could be happier with how everything has turned out over time. There are so many exceptional, hard working, passionate writers, artists, musicians and programmers who have spent countless hours keeping this project chugging along at top quality for the past several years.
I feel this is the culmination of all that effort.
Thank you so much for supporting us and reading Vast Error, whether you're an oldhead or have just started reading today. We look forward to sharing so much more with you.
Another year of Deconreconstructions gone by. Did you enjoy your Hollownull? How about Yulepassing? Great, great. Let's talk about me!
Burning the midnight oil writing these posts always leads me to ponder the same question I ask myself when I see the sun has risen and I'm still in my underwear: where does all our time go? This spin around the sun, I'd say it was mostly towards PERSONAL BUSINESS.
If 2022 was our breather year after a hectic 2020 and 2021, then 2023 was real life's landlord calling us up and telling us that we've still got rent due. Which was very literal in my case, as I spent a good portion of the second half of this year preparing to move, and another helping actually doing it. Not to mention everyone on the team (myself included) having big trips, illness, wage and educational priorities, and other issues that needed to get sorted before we got back to corralling gaggles of gray freaks. So let's stop wasting all these precious minutes and talk about how we did, how we're doing, and what's on the horizon!
VAST ERROR- In 2023 we put out 157 pages, two of which being animations. You can chalk up that smaller page count to all of the capital B BUSINESS I was referring to above.
Narratively, we're still going to be in the scene selection for a while. Post-Incursion wound up becoming longer, both in page count and production time, than intended. We had to get creative in a few places to get it where it currently is, but I'm happy with the results! After the last scenes are completed though, it sounds shocking, but we'll officially be done with the comic's setup phase. From there? Vast Error shifts into high gear. So much of A3A1 after this is BOOM! BIG REVEAL! BOOM! PLOTS CONNECTED! BOOM! HIGH STAKES! Honestly, I'd cherish these quieter moments if I were you.
SNOWBOUND BLOOD- Work on the SNOWBOUND BLOOD EPILOGUE is coming along steadily! There's a decent portion of writing done, along with some assets and music. Part of the reason it's taken longer than anticipated though is because we've decided to use it as an excuse to do a final pass over the entire game. Cleaning up the code, doing some editing and making changes to various routes here and there, really making it the complete package.
As for the epilogue itself? Let's just say that none of you know what's about to happen. (--)
WALKAROUND- The A3A1 WALKAROUND will be gearing up for full time production soon! We've had to transition from Unity to Godot because of the former's class act decision to shoot themself in the foot, but it's been a smooth switch with no real progress loss. We've started preliminaries on more overworld and talksprite work, but a bulk of the time is going to creating a design document so that we can plug and play all of the necessary dialogue, puzzle and combat systems. Once that's prepped? The ball won't stop rolling. Have a Dude, to keep yourself cool.
MUSIC- If you haven't checked it out already, Rainy released an album a few months back called Fighting Further! You can find it on our Bandcamp and on DCRC Music as usual.
It's a high energy, main 12 focused strife album that takes popular video game sounds and puts the old VEMT spin on them! It's also home to the longest song we've released to date. A real feat to behold. We've got great projects lined up for 2024 too! Will it be another solo? An EP or two? Maybe even the fabled VOLUME 6? That's between me and the record company. Which I own, and do not produce records for.
There's also FOUR BRAND NEW PLAYLISTS on the DCRC Spotify! These were supposed to all come out through 2023, but we couldn't get any of them out on schedule, so we bundled them up and put them all out at once to ring in the new year!
OTHER VE PROJECTS- We've been doing some internal conversations and decided that, while not for lack of trying or interest, it would be for the best that WARTORN TRAILS and RERUNS are shelved as they were originally planned. The major content we had for them will be restructured and siphoned back into Vast Error. We really wanted to make it work! But in hindsight, the writing was on the wall for a while. We bit off more than we could chew, and those announcements were made out of ambitious excitement rather than rational thought. We really do believe that this choice is in the best interest for our readers and the comic's development overall.
HOWEVER, we still intend on doing more side content for Vast Error from time to time. I think we've come up with a fantastic compromise, and we look forward to showcasing it in the future. Until then, we appreciate your patience and I'm sorry about the disappointing news.
DCRC's FUTURE- Version 2 of the website is still a good ways away. There's a lot that needs to be managed in order to turn this place from "The Home Of Vast Error" to "Independent Multimedia Hub", but we've already begun working out several solutions to long standing issues and have big plans for the front AND back ends. You won't even recognize the place once it's done.
I'd also like to self-indulgently take just a little time to formally announce that I'm hard at work planning out my own new, completely original IP for the website. You won't be seeing it in any official capacity beyond a tease here or there until Vast Error wraps, but it's something I'm very passionate about. My goal for the DCRC projects I helm is always to make something that pushes the boundaries of multimedia storytelling in new ways, and this scratches that itch for me.
I was going to include this whole final section where I add in a bunch of thanks and media recommendations, but I think I'm going to have to save it for its own separate newspost. For now? Have a happy belated new year! We'll be keeping in touch.
